Characterization and Electrochemical Properties of Nitrogen-Doped Ordered Microporous Carbons Containing Well-Dispersed Platinum Nanoparticles

Abstract

Ordered high surface area microporous carbon molecular sieves containing well-dispersed platinum nanoparticles have been prepared by chemical vapor deposition method. Acetonitrile was employed as carbon and nitrogen precursors to yield N-doped carbon molecular sieves. N-doped carbons have an average nitrogen content of ~ 4.1 wt%. Electrochemical tests showed that the rectangular-shaped CVs of N-doped carbons could be well retained over a wide range of scan rates (5~100 mV/s), and the CV curves presented a steep current change at the switching potentials. N-doped carbons exhibited excellent performance as an electrochemical supercapacitor with a calculated specific capacitance of 168 F/g. Meanwhile, it was noticed that a reasonable Pt loading would help to improve the capacitance. It was proposed that the polarizability or surface state modification by nitrogen doping and regular interconnected porous structure might contribute to the improvement of N-doped carbons’ electrochemical properties.